who teaches boys how to hate?
by The Crownless Queen
Summary: Inhale. Taste smoke, see blood, exhale. Taste smoke again. :: Piers nearly killed a boy just like him in this park, once. (warning for homophobia and depression)


Written for Hogwarts' herbology Assignment, Task 4: Write about someone suffering with depression.

Also for the Writing Club: Character Appreciation - 29. [Action] Sneering, Disney Challenge: 2. Sally - Write about someone falling apart, Count Your Buttons, S1 - "Bad Moon Rising" by Creedence Clearwater Revival, Lyric Alley 11 - What the hell am I doing here?, Ami's Audio Admirations: 7 - Demons - Imagine Dragons — Write about someone suffering with a mental health ailment, Em's Emporium: 7. Wild Child: (emotion) bitter, Bex's Basement: Love Potion #9 by The White Stripes - Write about unrequited love.

Also for the HPHG: Round 4 - Word: Ruin, Dialogue: "Please don't.", Character: Piers Polkiss, Setting: A park, Word Count: 808.

 _Word count:_ 808

* * *

 _ **who teaches boys how to hate?**_

Piers takes in a deep drag from his cigarette, and he watches as it makes his fingers glow red. If he doesn't think too much about it, it kind of looks like blood.

He exhales, and starts over.

This is his third cigarette tonight. The park is empty, has been this way for hours now, because all the kids in the neighborhood know better than to come here after dark — _and why is that?_ his mind whispers at him. _Huh, why is that?_

When Piers chuckles, he chokes on smoke.

They did this. He, and Dudley, and all of the others who thought themselves so brave and so strong, and so much better than everyone else. They did this.

Inhale. Taste smoke, see blood, exhale. Taste smoke again.

Some days, it feels like all Piers can taste is smoke — at least, with the cigarettes, he knows where it comes from.

.

They beat a boy half to death here, in this park.

Mark Evans, that small, wide-eyed kid who'd kind of looked like Dudley's cousin but had never learned to run as fast.

Mark Evans, who'd gotten caught kissing another boy after school — and in Privet Drive, that isn't really a thing you can do.

They mean to teach him that. That's what it was supposed to be. A lesson. A reminder that some things aren't meant to happen.

(A reminder that this stupid boy doesn't get to have the one thing Piers has been suppressing for years for free, handed to him like it's fucking easy.

It's not easy. It fucking isn't, and Piers stood by and helped the boy he's half in love with beat a boy who's _just like him_ half to death, and he felt nothing.

He felt nothing — he still doesn't.

Or well, he can taste smoke. That's something, he supposes.)

Things go wrong, though. Piers doesn't know how, or why, but they do. Somebody almost runs into them, and they have to run, have to scatter.

They leave Marc behind, broken and bleeding, and Piers pretends he doesn't taste bile behind the smoke.

.

The sound of footsteps warns him he's no longer alone. Once, Piers might have dropped his cigarette, might have ground it underneath his foot and pretended he hadn't been smoking, but he knows those footsteps.

He knows them as well as he knows himself — and isn't that the problem?

"Please don't." The words slip from his lips before he can hold them back. He isn't even sure what he's pleading for. Salvation, perhaps? Or to be left alone, maybe.

As though he would ever deserve either.

Dudley ignores him and sits on the bench.

Silently, Piers lights another cigarette and hands it over. Dudley coughs as he breathes it in — unlike Piers, he never seems to get used to the feeling, used to the smoke.

For a moment, Piers's lips quirk up as he thinks of Mrs. Dursley fretting over her precious son when he comes back smelling like cold tobacco and old ashes, but that smile doesn't last.

Inhale. Taste smoke, see blood, exhale. Taste smoke again.

Piers is tired.

"Why are you here, Big D?"

Dudley looks away first, but when his eyes only find the park to look at, they fall back on him pretty quickly.

 _Yeah,_ Piers thinks bitterly, _Big D had always been a coward underneath all that bravado._

"I haven't seen you in a while, that's all."

Piers grins crookedly. "Aww, where you worried about lil' old me?"

He rocks into the shove Dudley predictably goes for, laughing wryly.

"Glad to see you're still an asshole," Dudley mutters.

"Yeah, I don't think anything could ever change that," Piers mutters back, before taking another drag from his cigarette.

It's almost done — he'll need a new one.

There's a pause, a moment of silence between them.

Inhale. Taste smoke, see blood, exhale. Taste smoke again.

"That kid'll be alright, you know?

This time, Piers really does laugh.

"Will he, Dudley? Will he really? God, we could have killed him — we almost killed him. His blood's still there, on the ground. The rain won't wash it off." He grins savagely, sneering. The end of his cigarette almost burns his fingers. "Still think he's gonna be okay?"

Dudley swallows. "Maybe I should go."

Piers' laugh sounds like sobs. "Yeah, maybe you should."

(In the end, he plucks Dudley's cigarette from between his fingers. Dudley's not using it, anyway, and it'd be a waste to let it be consumed on its own.

As he inhales, Piers tries very hard not to think about how this is the closest his lips will ever get to kissing Dudley.

He doesn't quite succeed, but at least he has the smoke to hide the ruins in his chest as he watches Dudley leave.)


End file.
